Well, first you get a jar, then you get or grow a scoby.
Then you brew some tea, and sweeten it with real white sugar. No honey, honey!
Then you cool the tea, and put it in your jar, and add some white distilled vinegar.
No Apple Cider, you lush!
Then you float that scoby in that jar and cover the whole shebang with a tightly woven non shedding cloth and rubber band.
Then you wait, and you taste, and you wait and you taste, till you like it.
Then you put it in some bottles , or you drink it, but not before taking some out, and starting again, but using the finished kombucha as the vinegar the second time.
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Or you can buy some kombucha, make some sweet tea and pour the kombucha into the tea and wait , and grow your own scoby from the starter tea you just made.

Congratulations, you've just made your own Kombucha. Now wasn't that easy?

Metqa, I've never used vinegar in my home brew, is there a reason why I should start?

I've always used some brew from the previous batch...

Cici, welcome to the wonderful world of kombucha!!!!!!

I've given scobys to friends and used them for my compost heap... You grow a new scoby each brew, so you can imagine....

I used unrefined cane sugar, it's not white but light brown. It has not gone through a bleaching process. I also use oolong tea or green tea or a combination of the two to make my kombucha. It really depends on your tastes! I do recommend starting off simple, with white sugar and black tea and once you get the hang of it you can experiment a little with the type of sugar (no honey!!!) and the type of tea (no fruit or herbal infusions!!!) and doing a second ferment with fruits or fruit juices...

Have fun Cici!!!

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Do as I say, not do as I do... DEFINITELY not do as I do!!!

White vinegar is only for starting from scratch when you don't have any actual liquid kombucha to provide the acid environment to protect the sweet tea from undesirable pathogens while the scoby is establishing residence. If you have finished kombucha, you can use that.

I personally think starting with unflavored is more assured of success, but I've heard of several people starting from flavored. Since the store bought one is safely bottled, there is probably little chance of bad contamination. But any flavoring you do on your own should be on tea removed from the mother container to not contaminate it.

Thanks. I started my first today. I see on the internet that some say starting from store bought is no longer considered reliable. We shall see. I used plain raw organic k. plus black tea and turbino sugar.

I heard that they changed it so that it would no longer grow a new one. Bummer. I have found some for sale online, but they are typically dried and it takes a month or so to re-hydrate them. Wonder if Craigslist would have any nearby?

I grew a SCOBY just fine from a bottle of GT kombucha. I went through the shelf to look for a bottle with a well-formed SCOBY in it. That same SCOBY has been used for 1 1/2 years in my continuous brew system.

I think the rumor that you can't grow a SCOBY from commercial KT came from someone who sells some high priced scobys.

I make kombucha for my DD but I'm always afraid to drink it because of carbs. If I knew how many were in it I might be more inclined to drink 2-4oz per day. Bummer!

It doesn't slow me down; if you do a second ferment and add a cup of sugar to the gallon of booch before bottling it, you can wait a week to drink it and the booch will eat the sugar. You can tell because it's fermented and has bubbles.

The trick is to make sure the sugar (I use organic white) is thoroughly mixed, or you will have some bottles fizzy and others flat. Also, when you fill up the bottles for the 2nd ferment, fill them almost all the way to the top of the bottle, including the neck. Otherwise, they'll be flat and form a new scoby. I had to learn this the hard way. Over and over.

I usually use cherry juice or pomegranate, but in a real pinch, I'll use V-8 Splash.

Has anyone checked their blood sugar after drinking Kombucha? I, too, worry about the sugar in it, though just bought some mixed with chia seed so only 3 net carbs per cup, or that is what the label says.

The rumor came from the fact that they changed the biological family of the bacteria in the scoby in recent formulas.

It's not that you can't grow one from commercial, it's that the commercial ones are different now than they used to be. Some people prefer the old scoby matrix to the new one designed to limiti alcohol production ( not that there is much in there to begin with) , but it does limit how much it can ferment and I like my ferments to be strong and vinegary. I'd not like it to stay mild and sweet.

You can't grown KeFIR from commercial sources since it does not include kefir grains. But that's a different beverage.

I usually do a 14 day ferment so it probably doesn't have any sugar left. I do a second ferment for my DD. I put a handful of berries in and then let it set for two more days but I have never added more sugar to it. I might try a couple of ounces and see what happens.